al committee
shall be appointed to consider it. The Senate some years ago did
appoint a special committee and our question has been referred to
it. We have appeared before it this year and it has again
reported favorably. We hope that the administration of which you
are the head may use its influence to bring the matter before the
Senate and House.

We ask your assistance in one of two ways or in any other way
which may appeal to your judgment: First of all that you shall
send a special message to Congress to submit to the Legislatures
of the States an amendment to the National Constitution
enfranchising women citizens of the United States; if, however,
this does not appeal to you, we ask that you will use the
administration's influence on the Rules Committee to recommend
the appointment in the Lower House of a committee corresponding
with the Suffrage Committee in the Upper House, one which will
have leisure to consider our subject and report on it.

We appeal to you in behalf of the women citizens of the country.
Many of them have cast their ballots for the President already
and have an influence in the Government; many are very eager to
take an equal part and they appreciate the just manner in which
since your administration began you have weighed public
questions. Recognizing your splendid stand on the liberties and
rights of the people, we appeal to you because we believe you
will bring to ours that same spirit of justice which you have
manifested toward other great issues.

The President gave close attention and in his answer seemed to weigh
every word carefully:

I want you ladies, if I can make it clear to you, to realize just
what my present situation is. Whenever I walk abroad I realize
that I am not a free man; I am under arrest. I am so carefully
and admirably guarded that I have not even the privilege of
walking the streets alone. That is, as it were, typical of my
present transference--from being an individual, free to express
his mind on any and every subject, to being an official of a
great government and incidentally, or so it falls out under the
system of government, the spokesman of a party. I set myself this
very strict rule when I was Governor of New Jersey and have
followed and shall follow it as President--that I am